2022 was a blended 12 months for Instagram, with the platform reaching a brand new milestone in month-to-month energetic customers (2 billion), whereas additionally repeatedly copying TikTok and seemingly shedding its personal identification, not less than to some extent, within the course of.

The largest problem for IG appears to be that it’s not a singular app. Its instruments and options are all so spinoff that it’s not a cultural chief anymore, not in the best way that it as soon as was, whereas its insistence on highlighting extra content material from customers that you simply don’t comply with has seen the app stray farther from its roots, and right into a type of void between YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, and even Fb of occasions previous.

Which, once more, at 2 billion customers appears to nonetheless be working, and Instagram’s copying of TikTok has offered not less than one vital profit, in stopping many IG customers from straying to a different app. Nevertheless it seems like Instagram can be on the sting of the relevance curve, and that it may shortly fall out of favor if it had been to make any extra vital missteps.

Keep in mind the panic when Kylie Jenner mentioned that she was over IG?

Finally, nonetheless, the numbers inform the story, and proper now, Instagram stays a vital consideration for many entrepreneurs, by sheer dimension alone. And with that in thoughts, it’s vital to know the place the platform is headed, and what’s coming subsequent for the Meta-owned app.

At the moment, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri has offered some perception on simply that, posting a fast overview of the platform’s three key priorities for 2023.

As per Mosseri, Instagram’s key components of focus are:

1. Encourage folks to be artistic

Mosseri says that it is a basic on which Instagram was born ‘with these wonderful picture filters and loopy frames again within the day’. Fairly certain the ‘loopy’ options he’s referring to truly got here from Snapchat – however Instagram was the primary main platform to implement completely different filters and overlays for pictures, with the intention to customise your picture posts.

Alongside these traces, you’ll be able to count on to see Instagram including in additional visible customization and enhancing instruments, with, I’d hazard a guess, extra particular give attention to AR creation, and integrating 3D objects and experiences within the app.

Why? As a result of Meta is aware of that it’ll want creators to assist construct its metaverse imaginative and prescient, and Instagram is its greatest pathway to attach with next-level expertise – as a result of nobody cool makes use of Fb anymore, and its different apps don’t facilitate the identical degree of visible creation.

As such, Instagram actually is Meta’s gateway into the subsequent part, and it’ll want to make use of IG to not solely join with the subsequent technology of artists proper now, however to additionally information them into multi-dimensional creation.

The social platform that may greatest facilitate simplified 3D creation, in all its many functions, stands to win out within the AR/VR shift, and you may count on to see Instagram wanting so as to add extra instruments alongside these traces all through the subsequent 12 months.

2. Assist folks uncover issues they love

That is each a significant alternative and a significant threat for IG, as a result of with the intention to do that, it must shift person habits away from what they know and love (seeing the most recent posts from folks and profiles that they’ve chosen to comply with) and into a brand new, TikTok-like expertise, which is not geared round your individual curated social graph.

That works on TikTok as a result of that’s how the app established itself from the beginning, with a give attention to highlighting the most effective content material from throughout the app, primarily based in your pursuits, versus pushing you to comply with the customers that you simply like, and preserving you confined inside your direct-defined scope.

TikTok finally succeeds on this method as a result of its algorithm is so good at exhibiting you extra content material that you simply like, which then allows it to double down on that engagement by broadening the pool of content material that it could actually select from. On Instagram, you wish to see the most recent posts from mates and the profiles that you simply’ve chosen to comply with first, and whereas IG is making an attempt to shift customers away from this, it hasn’t been a easy transition as but.

It additionally negates the necessity for a feed algorithm. The unique justification of the algorithm was that there are such a lot of posts that you could possibly be proven every day, primarily based on the quantity of pages and folks that you simply comply with, that they must be sorted by an algorithm to indicate you probably the most related ones. However now, Instagram is including extra content material into the combination.

So can we nonetheless want an algorithm or not?

In any occasion, you’ll be able to count on Instagram to proceed alongside this path, with extra content material from folks and pages that you simply don’t comply with being jammed between updates in your important IG feed.

Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg famous again in July that simply over 15% of the content material in Instagram feeds was being delivered through its AI advice engine, and that he anticipated to see this ‘greater than double’ by the tip of 2023. That, regardless of some hiccups alongside the best way, is probably going nonetheless the plan.

Will that reach to Tales too, in exhibiting you Tales from folks and pages that IG’s algorithm thinks you may also like? In all probability – although I stay pessimistic that that is going to work out the best way that Instagram hopes.

3. Spark connections between folks  

The final aspect pertains to using the primary IG feed for content material discovery, with extra folks now sharing and discussing posts in DMs and Tales, which is a brand new shift in social engagement.

It was that folks shared posts publicly, each as a way to attach with others and share extra about their very own private pursuits. However over time, and amid numerous issues associated to divisive discourse and ‘cancel tradition’, extra folks have turn out to be more and more cautious about what they share to their important feed, which has seen a much bigger development in direction of extra personal sharing, and fascinating round content material inside smaller, personal teams.

Instagram’s been trying to feed into this with new additions like ‘Notes’, which allows customers to share a dialog immediate in a Tales-like bubble above your Direct inbox.

The concept is that this may assist to set off new conversations and engagement alternatives within the app, which, as Mosseri says, may assist IG differentiate itself from different apps by constructing for engagement round content material, versus simply specializing in the content material itself.

Will that work? I imply, perhaps. Once more, Meta has famous a number of occasions that extra folks at the moment are sharing in Tales and DMs than they’re of their important feed, and if the second step above works as Instagram hopes, in shifting person habits in direction of discovery, this could possibly be a brand new method to generate extra dialogue and engagement within the app across the newest trending clips and posts.

General, Instagram’s going to stay on the identical path that it’s been following over the previous 12 months, with the important thing aspect being the shift in direction of utilizing the primary feed for content material discovery.

Once more, I’m undecided that’s going to work, but when Instagram can get its algorithm proper, that could possibly be a path in direction of maximizing engagement by leaning into utilization tendencies, whereas nonetheless offering a singular expertise primarily based in your social graph.

Which, up until not too long ago, had all the time been Meta’s unassailable benefit. You may discover higher content material in different apps, however you continue to must log into Fb and IG each day to see the most recent posts out of your closest family and friends, not less than a few of whom received’t ever hassle to obtain the most recent apps. However TikTok’s discovery algorithm flipped the script, by making the content material itself the main target, which has shortly rendered Meta’s benefit in connections largely out of date.

Which is why Meta’s now taking part in catch up, and perhaps it could actually, perhaps not. However you’ll be able to see what it’s making an attempt to do with this method.

So what does that imply for manufacturers and entrepreneurs trying to make greatest use of IG?

Effectively, for one, I might be paying attention to the most recent artistic additions within the app, and how you should use these new eye-catching, attention-grabbing updates to enhance the presentation of your posts. Do word, nonetheless, that no quantity of cool results and edits will work as an alternative to figuring out your viewers, and the function your merchandise play of their lives.

Establish your key worth proposition, and the ache factors your choices deal with, then intensify these by artistic, native strategies.

By way of discovery, understanding your viewers’s broader pursuits, and taking part in into that, may get your content material displayed in additional person feeds, primarily based on the opposite posts that they interact with, whereas contemplating your choices for DM connection may additionally assist to reinforce your buyer relationships, according to their different communications.

Actually, Instagram’s trying to work with the tendencies, which may assist to information your technique alongside the identical traces. Or at least, you’ll be working according to what Instagram’s trying to intensify, which may assist to enhance your platform efficiency.